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SilkySmooth

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  1. debt4get, Thanks for your advice. I have just printed out the letter and I will pop that into the post when I walk the dog tonight. With regards to sending a CCA request. I am pretty sure I did one of these when the debt collectors first started coming after me and they did produce, but it was such a long time ago (and I have dealt with quite a few debts) that I don't honestly recall. Back in 2006/07 I was in quite a big mess and it has taken a lot of work and organisation to get to where I am today. So I will get one of these printed out too and send that off with a £1 cheque. Would I be better off sending recorded delivery or will snail mail suffice? If they do produce again, are there any good links on the forum I can read which will help me to determine if the agreement is enforceable? Again, many thanks for your help.
  2. Hi hughes690, I have just finished reading your thread. One big difference is that your account was/is in dispute. Mine is not nor can I put it in dispute. The thread did remind me of ECI and Highland Associates... two further debt companies which have chased me for this debt despite it being paid on a regular basis. In those cases I called them, told them it was being paid and they left me alone. This CAS company won't despite previous attempts. Thank you for the letter. Just one quick question, the letter refers to 'my' premises / property. I am currently living with relatives while I sort my debt problems and they rent the property. Will the letter still suffice or do I need to reword it because the property is not owned by either me or my relatives? As for the debt.... I had a current account with overdraft and a credit card with Smile (Co-operative). In 2006/07 I took them to court for the charges (with the help of this forum) during which time both accounts went to debt collectors. When I won the court case I used the money to repay the smaller current account debt in full and then proceeded to setup the repayment plan for the credit card account and have been paying it ever since.
  3. Hi, I need some advice regarding a threatening letter I received this morning from CAS - Credit Ancillary Services who are threatening doorstep collection. I find myself in a really wierd situation and I don't know who to contact or what to do to get this resolved. This all started in 2007 when I was contacted by a debt agency called Heatons about a debt from a credit card account. I acknowledged the debt and set up a standing order in August 2007 for £30 a month using the account details which Heatons provided. I have spent this afternoon going through my bank statements and have collected up the dates and amounts of every payment I have made: £30.00 30th August 2007 £30.00 1st October 2007 £30.00 30th October 2007 £30.00 30th November 2007 £30.00 31st December 2008 £30.00 30th Jenuary 2008 £30.00 3rd March 2008 £30.00 31st March 2008 £30.00 30th April 2008 £30.00 30th May 2008 £30.00 30th June 2008 PAYMENT BOUNCED £30.00 30th July 2008 £60.00 1st September 2008 £60.00 30th September 2008 £60.00 30th October 2008 £60.00 1st December 2008 £30.00 30th Decemeber 2008 £30.00 30th January 2009 £30.00 2nd March 2009 £30.00 30th March 2009 £30.00 30th April 2009 £30.00 1st June 2009 £30.00 30th June 2009 £30.00 30th July 2009 £30.00 1st September 2009 £30.00 30th September 2009 £30.00 30th October 2009 £30.00 30th November 2009 £30.00 30th December 2009 As you can see I have been making regular payments to this debt. In June 2008 I did miss a payment due to insufficient funds in my account. I contacted Heatons (after getting letter) and increased my payment from £30 a month to £60 a month for a few months to catch up on the missed payment and repay a bit extra as at the time I could afford to. After the first December 2008 payment I contacted them again and requested to reduce it back down to £30 because I couldn't keep up, they agreed. I didn't miss a single payment in 2009 and as far as I am concerned I am paying my debt. Everynow and then I get a letter from CAS threatening me and telling me I haven`t made a payment. This happened in early 2009 and I contacted them and told them the debt was being repaid by standing order to Heatons. I then contacted Heatons to confirm and they told me to ignore the letters from CAS and as long as I keep up the repayments there shouldn't be any problem. So we get to 2010! On 7th of January I received two letters from CAS. Letter 1 (Dated 5th Jan): Was a do not ignore this letter, making reference to my original creditor being 'Equidebt - COOP Bank Plc'. The letter went on to state that my lack of response to their previous letter (what previous letter???) concerns them and that I should contact them as they may be able to help. The reference number matches exactly with the debt I am paying to Heatons as it has done on letters in early 2009. Letter 2 (Dated 5th Jan): Received the same day as letter 1 stated that Equidebt Limited has instructed CAS to collect the debt which has been outstanding for some considerable time and must be paid. In bold they go on to state that they are now the authorised debt collection company dealing with this account. I did nothing, having previously been told to ignore letters from CAS by Heatons. This morning I received another two letters from CAS: Letter 3 (Dated 12th Jan): We confirm receipt of your payment, this has been credited to your account accordingly. It does not appear that a repayment plan has been agreed with you and neither have proposals for future payments with regard to clearing this debt. If you do not get in touch with us within 7 days further action may be taken... Letter 4 (Dated 13th Jan): Doorstep Collection Notice. Our records indicate that we have been unable to come to an arrangement to clear the outstanding balance on this account. This is your last chance to voluntarily offer us payment on this account before we arrange for a Debt Collector to visit you at your home. You have until January 23rd 2010 to respond. Ironically and despite letter 3 thanking me for a payment (I assume was the payment sent to Heatons on the 30th of December) all four letters state the same amount as being due. I have not yet contacted Heatons or CAS about these letters as I wanted to come here and try to get some advice first. I have been paying this debt, I have my bank account statements to prove this, every payment is recorded on my statements as a standing order payment to 'Heatons Client Acc' and then the reference number of the debt. So what can I do to get this company off my back? Can I report CAS to the OFT? Who should I continue paying? Heatons haven`t written to me since I missed the payment in June 2008 because they are satisfied I am paying the debt. Guarantee if I stop paying them and start paying CAS then Heatons will start up again. Please help.
  4. Hi Paul, Congratulations! Case closed and move on to the next Yes, you can and will need to start a new claim for the £75 they have added. And this time you will feel a lot more confident about getting it back
  5. Paul, I am not quite as far along as you are... I sent my LBA two days ago so they have 14 days to pay what I have requested. I usually allow an extra 2 days grace to allow for the postal service. So if after 16 days I haven`t had a satisfactory response, i.e. my money back then I will start court action. I have completed four claims to date against one bank and three credit card companies. I had to begin court cases against ALL four of them before they would take me seriously and stop offering partial settlements. As soon as the court cases were started two of the four paid up in full. The other two took it right up until the court date and then paid up in full (one of them left it right up until the last day for the cheque to actually arrive). So based on these experiences I don't allow them any more than a few days for post delays. Four weeks is ample time to respond to a claim.
  6. Hey Paul, Just to follow up on what the others have said (I have recently started a claim against smile and got the same letter back). Basically they are trying to delay the claim by using the FSA as a scare tactic... in my opinion for two reasons. Because they have more claims than they can handle and just for the pure heck of stalling. You have one thing to remember, by following the information provided here at CAG you are following the legal path. Niether the FSA or smile make the law nor can they change the timeframe that you have set out in your letters. Also make sure you stick to the timeframe EVEN when they tell you an offer is on the way. More often than not the offer will not be what you have requested and if you don't stick to your dates then it just slows down your claim.
  7. PriorityOne, andrew1, Thank you both for your replies, I have typed up the following letter based on your comments and will be sending it off first thing in the morning registered. "Dear Sir/Madam, On the 10th January 2007, I made a legal request for the Consumer Credit Agreement in relation to the above account (Consumer Credit Act, 1974) To date, you have failed to comply with this request and therefore, no further payments will be made until such times as it can be produced and re-enforced in court. Please be aware that it is an offence to continue to pursue payment on a disputed account. Non-compliance of a CCA request is a complete defence in any court action taken that you may take and as such, any action that you do take will be vigorously defended. Furthermore, you have placed a default upon the account whilst the account remains in dispute. I therefore require that you remove the default within 7 days and confirm in writing. Yours Sincerely" I will let you know when/if I hear anything back.
  8. Hey, Been a while, thanks to everyone for the follow ups on this thread... just to recap.... On 10th of Jan we sent a CCA letter to CL Finance who I have found out through phone calls and chasing etc that they do own the debt. On the 16th of Jan they replied stating that they have received our request and that they have "requested the information". Since then we have not heard anything. They send monthly statements and they have cashed the £1 cheque and applied it to the balance of the account. We have kept the original payments running but stopped them as of the end of February, thus we did not pay March. Now on the 2nd of April they have now sent us a Default Notice. We now have until the 16th of April to pay the balance before they will go to the next step. But we have still not received the documents requested in the CCA and they are now well past the 12/14 days and one month period. What should we do now? Please advise on the next steps.
  9. Wow, I wasn't expecting such a great response, thanks everyone. I have read through the responses here and read some other threads over the past day or two. Due to the amount in question in this particular case I have decided to accept the cheque (albiet I had to call them and request a new cheque because they put 'Paid into Account XXXXX' on it and the account is closed!) I have read the letter which they sent out over and over again and whilst the payment is in full and final settlement it does not state any terms and I am not asked to agree to any terms other than write to the court and cancel the case against them. I have found even more charges in my statements which date back further than 6 years, so when this case is cleared through the system I am going to start the process again with the new charges which are in excess of the 6 year period and see how I get on. Thanks again
  10. Yes, I have lumped together two business accounts and a personal account, as long as it has the relevant signatures it's fine.
  11. Hey, I have been pursuing NatWest and subsequently Cobbetts since way back in November. I have dealt with the partial offers and CPR18 request and all that baloney and finally got a court date sorted for March. Today, I received a cheque from Cobbetts in full and final settlement with the usual 2 letters to send to the court and back to them. All the excitement soon died off when I put the cheque down and read the letter. They have stated in the letter: "as previously stated under the limitation act 1980 you cannot bring a claim more than 6 years after the date on which the cause of action accrued." So they have taken off 6 months worth of charges, around £200 off of my claim and then sent the cheque for the remaining amount plus court costs. Now it is my understanding from reading and discussing on this forum that the above limitations act ONLY applies when you are requesting statements from your bank. I have kept every single statement from NatWest and therefore never had to make any such request. So if I have taken them to court for 6 years and 6 months worth of charges this is what I should get. Please correct me if you know different. So do I decline the offer and politely remind them that interest is accruing on the debt and tell them for the millionth time that I will only accept the full amount, explaining that the limitations act does not apply? Do I cash the cheque or send it back when I decline the settlement? Any help greatly appreciated.
  12. Hi B, Here is a copy of one that I used: "I do not acknowledge any debt to your company. I require you to supply the following documentation before I will correspond further on this matter. You must supply me with a true copy of the alleged agreement you refer to. This is my right under your obligation to supply a copy of the agreement under the legislation contained within s.78 (1) Consumer Credit Act 1974 (s.77 (1) for fixed sum credit) - your obligation also extends to providing a statement of account. I enclose a cheque made out for a £1 A signed true copy of the deed of assignment of the above referenced agreement that you allege exists. You are notified that you are obliged to supply these documents, whether you are the original creditor or not under S189 of the CCA 1974. Non-compliance with my request is a criminal offence under the above Act and will result in a report being submitted to the relevant statutory authorities. As you are aware, a credit agreement that is not properly documented and signed by the customer is totally unenforceable under the CCA and therefore is a complete defence to any court claim that is issued. Take note at this stage, that any legal action you may contemplate will be both vigorously defended and contested. Yours Sincerely" HTH
  13. Hi, First of all thank you both for the replies, very helpful. Below is an update on what we have done so far plus some answers to the questions. The current DCA is called: CL Finance My father received a letter from them on the 21st of Dec where the letter clearly states "ownership of the debt has changed hands and been assigned to CL Finance." The original debt is for a Debenhams Store Card. On Jan 10th we sent the following CCA request to CL Finance: "I do not acknowledge any debt to your company. I require you to supply the following documentation before I will correspond further on this matter. You must supply me with a true copy of the alleged agreement you refer to. This is my right under your obligation to supply a copy of the agreement under the legislation contained within s.78 (1) Consumer Credit Act 1974 (s.77 (1) for fixed sum credit) - your obligation also extends to providing a statement of account. I enclose a cheque made out for a £1 A signed true copy of the deed of assignment of the above referenced agreement that you allege exists. You are notified that you are obliged to supply these documents, whether you are the original creditor or not under S189 of the CCA 1974. Non-compliance with my request is a criminal offence under the above Act and will result in a report being submitted to the relevant statutory authorities. As you are aware, a credit agreement that is not properly documented and signed by the customer is totally unenforceable under the CCA and therefore is a complete defence to any court claim that is issued. Take note at this stage, that any legal action you may contemplate will be both vigorously defended and contested. Yours Sincerely" The cheque was enclosed (I forgot to ask my father if that had been cashed) and letter sent recorded delivery on the morning of the 10th. On Jan 16th CL Finance replied: "We aknowledge your request and have requested the information you require. The documents will be forwarded in due course." This leads me to beleive that despite their original claim of "ownership" that they are in fact just collecting and the debt has remained with Debenhams. Otherwise they wouldn't need to request the information from anyone. So allowing them 14 days from the date of our letter, the time runs out on the 24th of January and we are not sure what the next step is. Sarah, thanks for the detailed response, we have checked through past statements and there are no charges directly from Debenhams on the account. Also at this stage we won't be chasing the other 2 DCA's, the first one because my father did not keep any of the paperwork and the second one because they would not have added any charges (as soon as it was passed onto them my father was already getting help from the CAB so the £1 arrangement was always paid). Also we have left the £1 arrangement in place with CL Finance, the first payment was taken two days ago. Phew, that was a lot of typing Any advice on the next steps greatly appreciated.
  14. Congratulations Cally, I just received a letter from the court with a date for my hearing so shouldn't be long for me now! Well done!
  15. No, if SSW accept the payment in full and final settlement then Wescot will not be able to chase you.
  16. Hi, I would write a letter to SSW with your offer explaining that you are prepared to pay the amount of £218 (Do not enclose payment) in full and final settlement of the debt and that if they are prepared to accept you can make the payment within two weeks of receiving there response via their preferred method. Send the letter recorded delivery and keep a copy for reference. This way in the unlikely event that Wescot try to take it any further via the courts, you can show the courts that you have attempted to repay the debt, following the courts instruction to contact SSW. The reason I say not to enclose the payment at this stage is because they have not formally accepted your offer and could potentially take the £218 and then chase you for the rest. HTH
  17. I am guessing they have probably added their own costs to the debt, but they should provide you with a run down of how the debt has accrued.
  18. Happy New Year, The fact that it has been sold would make a difference as I beleive they would now be responsible for proving that you owe the debt. Someone else will probably come along and advise you better than I can, but based on my knowledge your first course of action would be to send them the CCA letter which can be found in the following thread, letter N: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/debt-bailiffs-advice/20758-creditors-dcas-letter-templates.html Remember to send it recorded delivery so that they cannot argue that they haven`t received it.
  19. Hi, I will try and keep this as short and sweet as possible, I am currently claiming back charges on a number of bank accounts and was recently explaining the process to my father, he then side tracked me to tell me about a debt that goes back beyond 2000. Basically when my parents divorced he ended up with this particular debt to pay off, it went to the first debt agency where he appeased them by making irregular but substantial payments, this wasn't enough however as the debt was passed to another agency. He then dealt with them for some two years (Citizens Advice helped arange a monthly £1 payment on the debt). The debt has now been passed onto a third debt collection agency preparing to set up the new £1 agreement with them. I explained that I had read a little about unenforceable debts on this forum and shared what knowledge I have. I have been searching for about two hours now to try and find the answers to both his and my own questions. I have read a number of threads and have found the CCA letter to use plus a few modified version, so we are confident we can put that part together... if anyone can help on the below would really appreciate it... Is there a step by step guide anywhere similar to the ones available for bank / credit card charges? Should my father continue to make the £1 repayments or stop from the point of sending the CCA request? I/We understand that they have 12 days to comply plus a couple of days admin time, plus 30 days before the debt becomes unenforceable. However, what if anything happens after that point? Do we need to take them to court to ensure the debt is written off? Thanks in advance for any advice.
  20. Hi, It is my understanding that if the claim is above 5k then it will not get allocated to the small claims court. As you state that it is *well* above, it is even less likely. Therefore you should prepare yourself and go and read this post about what to reply for the CPR18 Request.... http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/natwest-bank/35672-cobbetts-cpr-18-request-2.html#post314972 Cobbetts seem to be dealing with each case slightly differently but the usual action is that after the bog off letter you should then receive some form of offer. (This is the stage I am currently at with them, my claim is for just over 4k) You don't appear to have received such an offer, most likely because your claim exceeds the 5k limit for small claims. Seriously, I cant recommend enough that you search this forum to see how claims above 5k get handled differently. If I were you, yes I would get the reply in because the last thing you want is for them to request the case be struck out because you didn't comply with their request. HTH
  21. Hey, If your claim is below 5000 then don't worry about it, your case will be allocated to the small claims track and thus the only person who can make you fill out the CPR18 request is the judge. This thread has some good reading.... http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/natwest-bank/35672-cobbetts-cpr-18-request.html HTH Silky
  22. Great, this bank is the whole reason I got into my debt problems in the first place (plus my own mismanagement which I accept) but it will be nice to get one up on this bank!
  23. Hey, I currently have a claim against NatWest which is at the AQ stage and am now dealing with Cobbets... in doing my research on the letters to send back to Cobbets I came across this thread... http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/royal-bank-scotland-bank/56083-rbs-claiming-six-years.html?highlight=Cobbets In the thread it is stated that the primary reason for not being able to claim back more than 6 years is because the banks are not required to keep statements past that point. I didn't realise this and thought it was due to the Limitations, hence have only claimed from 2000. I have however kept every single bank statement I have ever had, so after my first claim is settled would it be possible for me to initiate a second claim against NatWest and claim back the rest? Thanks Silky
  24. Thanks for coming back to me, I have typed up a letter below which I plan to send to both the Solicitors and Wescot... would you mind having a read through and let me know if there is anything I should add / change? * Notes in brackets will be edited according to whether the letter goes to the Solicitor or Wescot". "In reply to your recent letter regarding the account above. (As I have previously informed your client Wescot/ As I have previously informed you) this account is currently subject to a dispute with the original creditor NatWest. Northampton County Court Claim: (MoneyClaim Ref Num). I have been advised that whilst this account remains under dispute no claim against the debt may be made until the dispute has been resolved. It is my understanding that in such cases I am to refer you back to NatWest for confirmation that the account is under dispute. As I have also previously stated in letters (to Wescot/ to you), when this dispute has been resolved I will be in a position to enter into a repayment plan which is acceptable to both parties." Does that look Ok? Thanks
  25. Hi, Well I sent a letter to Wescot and received no reply, I have now had a letter from Nelson Guest & Partners who are acting on behalf of WCS who are acting on behalf of NatWest.... "We are instructed by WCS on behalf of Natwest, in connection with the sum outstandingshown above. Unless payment is made to WCS within 7 days , legal action for the recovery thereof may be commenced without further notice. In the event of Judgment being obtained, we shall seek all fixed costs and fees together with statutory interest on the outstanding balance." So basically they ignored me. What should I do now, write to the solicitors and explain to them that the account is in dispute?
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